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Children's Attitudes Toward Play: An Investigation Of Their Context Specificity And Relationship To Organized Sport Experiences, Donald L. Greer, Michael J. Stewart

Health and Kinesiology Faculty Publications

Beginning with the work of Webb (1969), a line of research has developed attempting to explain how the socialization experiences of children and adolescents help transform their attitudes toward play. In Webb's view, the transformation to a state of being "professionalized" has occurred when an emphasis on equity and fairness, which are pronounced at earlier stages of development, has been replaced by a focus on winning. The body of research that hasdeveloped from this original formulation has consistently identified age and gender differences (Loy , Birrell, & Rose, 1976; Maloney & Petrie, 1972; Mantel & VanderVelden, 1971) in play attitudes, …